Fram2 private manned mission splashes down safely
The Fram2 private commercial manned mission successfully ended today when SpaceX’s Resilience capsule splashed down safely off the coast of California.
The crew spent about four days in space, circling the Earth in the first polar orbit by a human crew.
This was SpaceX’s sixth privately funded manned mission. Three docked with ISS and were paid for by Axiom. Three flew independently, with two paid by Jared Isaacman and one by Chun Weng (which landed today). Plus Axiom has scheduled its next ISS commercial flight for May, 2025, using a new SpaceX capsule (bringing the company’s manned fleet to five spacecraft).
As I noted earlier this week, SpaceX is making space exploration profitable, which in turn makes the government irrelevant. And ain’t that a kick?
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The Fram2 private commercial manned mission successfully ended today when SpaceX’s Resilience capsule splashed down safely off the coast of California.
The crew spent about four days in space, circling the Earth in the first polar orbit by a human crew.
This was SpaceX’s sixth privately funded manned mission. Three docked with ISS and were paid for by Axiom. Three flew independently, with two paid by Jared Isaacman and one by Chun Weng (which landed today). Plus Axiom has scheduled its next ISS commercial flight for May, 2025, using a new SpaceX capsule (bringing the company’s manned fleet to five spacecraft).
As I noted earlier this week, SpaceX is making space exploration profitable, which in turn makes the government irrelevant. And ain’t that a kick?
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
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4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
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Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
I’ll give them advice, it will be more profitable if they can make it affordable for schmucks like me.
Usually I know about launches and landings from forum posts, X feed, or websites like this. Was this kept under wraps for some reason?
I would have watched to feed my jealousy of the occupants.
“Fram”, a Norwegian word, means “Forward”.
John
I do think that Falcon 9 launches are pretty much price fixed by now.
The basic launch like this one with all used equipment. Low Earth Orbit and everything recovered.
The next is a higher orbit with more fuel and less cargo
The next is using all the fuel and watch the first stage crash.
If you really want to go high cost launch throw in an all new rocket to the mix.
If the lowest cost launch is 40 million then that is a cheap 10 million per seat.
I can not see them getting the cost down to 10 million a launch even with a well used falcon 9. And that would bring the price down to 2.5 million a seat and place it into the realm of “normal” millionaires.
Yngvar says: ““Fram”, a Norwegian word, means “Forward”.”
For a lot of Americans who used to do maintenance on their vehicles, it also means oil filter, though pronounced differently. Cheers –
Guns-n-Roses
“Civil War”
https://youtu.be/ql0lUqbQtn4
7:43
“I don’t need your civil war,
It feeds the rich, while it buries the poor.
You’re power-hungry, sellin’ soldiers in a human grocery store,
Ain’t that fresh?”
The $10 million F9 2nd stage is always lost on every flight. Add RTLS booster refresh plus fairing recovery costs and $25-30 mill is probably as cheap as it gets w/o GM added in. Neutron, FH/SS, Stoke Space with reusable 2nd stages will be the real game changers.
So I guess we can say that they were inconvenienced and not stranded